


Couches and Kisses

by heyshalina



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst and Humor, Canon compliant through Season 2, Couches, Derek Needs To Use His Words, Fluff, Gen, Kisses, M/M, Monster of the Week, Scott McCall & Isaac Lahey bromance, Snarky Stiles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-21
Updated: 2013-10-21
Packaged: 2017-12-30 00:48:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1012047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heyshalina/pseuds/heyshalina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nice things. Derek needs them.</p><p>In which Stiles gets Derek a couch, they chase an arguably adorable monster, fall down a not-rabbit hole, and Derek may or may not ruin his entire life by admitting that yeah, Stiles might sort of be attractive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Couches and Kisses

**Author's Note:**

  * For [marshmallowfluff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marshmallowfluff/gifts).



> I don't even know anymore.
> 
> Happy birthday to the lovely marshmallowfluff! I hope this suffices. In any way, shape, or form. I took a wonderful little prompt and turned it into a Monster of the Week surrounding a couch. Oh well. Love ya!
> 
> This takes place during the time gap of the summer between seasons 2 and 3a.

Stiles was on Derek’s couch. Derek didn’t know why Stiles was on his couch. Derek didn’t even know he owned a couch.

“Ughhh,” Stiles groaned into the couch pillow, which was also news to Derek. Stiles flailed around a bit before stilling, looking up at Derek (who was strategically ignoring him), and beginning to writhe on his (not his?) couch again. “UGHHH.”

“ _What_ , Stiles?” Derek whirled around on his spinny stool next to his counter, both of which he was aware of owning.

Stiles looked up at him petulantly. Why was Stiles here alone? Why wasn’t he at Scott’s house? How the hell did he even get into his apartment? “I’m upset.”

“Clearly.”

“Aren’t you going to ask me why? That is the proper way to respond to an upset houseguest.”

“Get out of my house. This isn’t even a house. Who let you in?”

“If you must know, Isaac let me in on his way out.” Stiles replied, sitting up on the cushions. His eyebrows danced on his forehead. “He looked dapper. I think he was on his way to a date.”

“He was going to Scott’s house.” Derek said.

“Same thing.”

Derek growled softly, deep in his throat, turning around to face Peter’s laptop again. The screen was dark. He flicked it.

“It’s just asleep, moron. Click the mouse.”

“Why is that couch in here?”

“Because for some reason you can’t have nice things, so we got one.”

“When?”

“Like...Sunday.”

Derek blinked. “Oh.”

“I think Scott and Isaac are going out to look at TV’s.” Stiles mused, leaning back. “You need one.”

“I do not.”

“Like...a flat-screen. We could watch football. Or whatever it is you watch.”

“I don’t–”

Stiles raised his arms. “Game night at Dereks! Watch football, bring your Scrabble!”

“Stiles–”

“Let’s play Cards Against Humanity, I bet Lydia would–”

Derek sighed heavily, cutting Stiles off. Goddamn it. “You said you were upset.”

Stiles blinked, and his face fell. Derek instantly felt like a douchebag. “Oh, yeah.” Stiles flopped down on the couch again, burying his face into one of the cushions. “UGHH.”

“Stiles–” Derek bit out, trying to formulate sentences around Stiles’s moaning. “Stiles–fine, what’s wrong?”

Stiles flipped over and narrowed his eyes. “You could try to make that sound a little less painful to ask.”

“You could learn to keep out of my house.”

“Do you really want to know?” Stiles asked, propping himself up and leaning forward.

“No.”

“So there’s this guy at our school, his name’s Danny, he’s our goalie–he was in my room that one time, when you, yeah, you know him. So earlier this year I was working through some stuff, and I asked him a question, and it was completely innocent, you know? He’s gay, and I wanted to know if I’m attractive to gay guys. Still do, because he keeps evading the question! It’s getting downright offensive, at this point I’d take a serious ‘no, Stiles, you are genuinely a disgusting-looking human being’ more than these amused, annoyed little huffs, or curt sarcastic ‘no’s he keeps giving me. Sue a guy for trying to figure out his status in the world.”

“You’re problem is that a gay guy won’t tell you you’re attractive.” Derek sighed in disbelief. He turned back around, facing the lore he was researching (sent by Stiles the night before).

“It is a serious problem!” Stiles whined. “I am upset! Why can’t he just give me a straight answer? It’s not like I’m gonna march right into the Jungle and ask gay guys whether or not I’m attractive, I’d rather know from someone I’m supposed to trust. You know. In a teamwork-y sort of sense. I trust Danny. I think he hates me, but I trust him much more than Jackson–do you think I’m attractive?”

Derek’s fingers froze over the keyboard. “What.”

“I’m serious, man. Am I attractive? Like, not in like a soul-searchy romancy kind of way, but like, looks.”

Derek felt the red of a blush begin to creep its way up the back of his neck. He slapped a hand over it. “Uh.”

“That was articulate.”

Derek’s hand twitched against the edge of the laptop. He opened his mouth just a little bit, eyes trained on the clock on the kitchenette wall. “Stiles, I don’t think–”

Derek sagged in silent relief as Stiles’s phone promptly began spazzing out on the coffee table (which was also new, what the hell, he didn’t have this kind of money). Stiles glowered at it like he could make it die by his own free will. “Fine, Grumpypants,” He spat at Derek before lifting up the phone to his ear. “You’ve reached Stiles.”

Derek kept completely still, palms digging into the edge of the keyboard slightly as he fought down the blush creeping up his neck. He growled lowly.

“Yeah,” Stiles replied, getting off of the couch and pacing. “Well–no, I’m still at Derek’s. Are you sure? Uh-huh…is this a level seven? Goddamn it Scott, you know what the hell a level seven is. I expect better from my best friend, you uncultured swine. Is it bad? Is it _bad_ bad? On a scale of one to seven. _That’s_ why it’s called a level seven, you bitch.” He stopped in front of the door, and Derek dared to turn around. Stiles’s face was scrunched up in concern. “Sit tight, I’ll come pick you up. No, dude, Lydia doesn’t need to know about this, not until we’re so deep in shit it’s covering our eyeballs. Which will be soon, yes, I _get that_. But not until then, she doesn’t need to get involved. I’m not calling Allison for you, fix your own problems. Alright. Bye.”

Stiles hung up and turned to face Derek, face twisting into something the Alpha didn’t recognize. “There’s trouble. Um, obviously. I’ll–I have to go get them, I’ll be back.”

Stiles was out the door before Derek could even say “okay”. He sighed, sliding off of the stool. As soon as he heard the Jeep’s tires pull out of the driveway, Derek made his way over to the couch they had bought him. He’d make Isaac tell him how much it was later. He stared at it for awhile, a chocolate brown leather sofa with red couch pillows. It reminded him of Stiles.

He wanted to throw it away.

He sat on his stool staring at his spare, lonely apartment until he heard the Jeep pull into his neighborhood about twenty minutes later.

“Aw, you kept the couch, how sweet.” Stiles said upon entering the apartment again, Scott and Isaac in tow. He turned to the two Betas, gesturing toward the piece of furniture. “He just noticed.”

“I was sure you’d get rid of it,” Isaac said, plopping down on said couch. “You hate nice things.”

“I do not hate–” Derek growled. “You said there was trouble.”

“Trouble is...relative.” Isaac mused.

“Relative to what?”

“Whether or not you include people dying as a big component on what constitutes ‘trouble’,” Stiles replied, collapsing on the coffee table.

Derek stepped closer. Scott looked like he wanted to run away. “Has anyone died?”

“No, that’s the trouble.” Stiles said to the ceiling.

“How it that–”

“I saw this thing, this...light, on the way to Scott’s house.” Isaac replied. “It was weird, and unfamiliar, and purple, and smelled really bad. I’m not a moron–”

“That’s debatable.” Stiles muttered under his breath.

Isaac sent him a glare. “–So I went to get Scott. Instead of going to Best Buy we went back out into the woods, and there were these _holes_ in the ground. The thing was gone, and the holes, they eventually just filled back up again. It was so weird.”

“How is this a level seven?” Derek moaned.

“See, he gets the reference!” Stiles grinned widely. “I’m proud of you.”

“Because this thing _reeked_ of murder.” Scott said. “Whatever it is, it isn’t good. Those holes were dangerous-looking. If someone was caught in the woods at the wrong time…”

“We don’t even know what this thing is.” Derek said.

“So we do a little recon,” Isaac suggested. Derek nodded. Stiles fell to the floor. “If it’s some animated Care-Bear, we leave it alone to it’s business. If it’s an evil spider, I’m taking it down.”

Stiles groaned into the carpet. “I hate spiders.”

* * *

 It was not, it turned out, a giant murderous spider. It actually was something much weirder.

Actually, it was just a bad day overall.

“Here, Aragog,” Stiles called out, baseball bat brandished over his shoulder. “Here, spider, spidey, spider. Tasty Derek, just for youuu!”

“Will you shut up.” Derek growled.

“No!” Stiles called back joyfully, practically skipping through the forest. “You know what normal teenagers do over their summer vacation, Derek? They get a job. They play video games. Binge on Skyrim. They gain ten pounds before trying to work it off in August. You know what I do on my summer vacation? I hunt down monsters. With a werewolf. In the woods.”

“At least it’s not nighttime,” Derek shrugged. Stiles glared at him with a Grumpy Cat face.

“Because that makes it _so_ much better.” He barked back. “I’m out in the woods with an emotionally stunted Alpha werewolf and a potentially murderous spider the size of my car, but thank goodness that it’s overcast!”

Derek scoffed, keeping his eyes sharp as they continued patrolling the woods. It was early Thursday morning, which meant both of Stiles’s and Scott’s respective parents were working. Scott and Isaac had elected to patrol the south side of the preserve, leaving Derek to drag Stiles along the north side.

Not for the first time, Derek let his mind wander and think about where Boyd and Erica might be. Just like always, a feeling of dread began to set over his heart that they hadn’t contacted any of them yet, even Isaac, who up until push came to shove had been planning to leave with them. Not even a text message. Not one voicemail.

Stiles was kneeling over something on the ground. Derek thought about how Erica and Boyd would contribute to the mission. Erica was rash, but kept everyone in line, even Stiles. Boyd...Boyd was calm. Derek missed that. He missed the calm.

“I think I found something.” Stiles’s voice told him. “Derek, this is weird. Come here.”

Suddenly a howl pierced through the air; it was Isaac. Derek’s head snapped up, facing north. Trouble. He went to move forward, but something caught his arm. His head whipped back, eyes flashing red. Stiles was unperturbed.

“Derek,” he repeated. “They’re fine. I have my cell phone. Scott knows to text me. Isaac has my number. I found something.”

“What is it?” Derek asked, every instinct telling him to run to his pack. Stiles, however much he smelt and acted like it, was not pack. Not _technically_.

“I think it used to be one of the holes.” Stiles said, walking back over to where he had dropped his backpack. “Although it’s filled up now. Almost. The ground is kind of squishy, and the soil seems different. Either the monster is working on ground level and trying to get down, or it’s below, and trying to get up. There’re like...pathways. Tunnels. Larger-than-average-human sized tunnels. Yay.”

Derek felt jittery; he knew what Stiles was saying was brilliant and important, but he couldn’t bring himself to focus. Another howl rang through the air, and that was it. It was definitely Isaac; the tone of the howl said _Come, it’s important_. There was no panic, no anguish. Not yet.

Derek had to make sure that ‘yet’ was an ‘ever’.

“Derek, wait!”

Derek hadn’t even realized that he had started running but he couldn’t stop. His one loyal beta had called him, and he wasn’t losing another one, not when Isaac had been so close to leaving in the first place. He continued to run until he heard the howl come again; this time slightly more to the east. Derek readjusted his path, sprinting full speed, when a scream stopped him short.

Stiles.

“ _Derek_!” Stiles shrieked distantly, and Derek was running again, but this time in the opposite direction, because he was an _idiot_ , why did he leave Stiles alone when there was a monster in the woods that was _potentially a gigantic spider_?

He had been so focused on his one loyal beta left…

He had more than one.

He traced his steps back to the area Stiles and him were in, whipping his head around. He heard Stiles’s manic breaths and ran to them.

“Dear God.”

Derek skidded on the ground until he landed beside Stiles, whose entire lower half of his body was underneath the ground, in this...hole. Stiles’s breaths were coming out in some random staccato rhythm, palms pressed against the ground as he tried to pull himself up and out to no avail.

“D-Derek,” Stiles gasped, unable to grab a breath. “I think I’m, I’m having a–”

“No, you’re not.” Derek grabbed Stiles’s arm, trying to keep himself from flipping out. “Just breathe, okay? I’m gonna get you out.”

“Please don’t let it be a spider.” Stiles half breathed, half sobbed. “I can’t move my legs. Please don’t let it be a spider.”

“I don’t think it’s a spider, Stiles.” Derek tried to comfort him, but when Stiles forced out a laugh, it sounded a little hysterical.

“I was gonna tell you, that…that the ground went through.” Stiles said. He sunk a little bit farther, and Derek grabbed his other arm, positioning himself on the ground. “That it wasn’t real dirt, Wasn’t packed enough, no n-nutrients. Goes right through. W-watch your step. Fell-fell through. When Isaac howled. I think he might be in trouble.”

“I’m going to get you out first.” Derek promised.

“I thought I’d be able to catch up with you,” Stiles wheezed. “But I found another h-hole. Whoops.”

Derek bit his lip, repositioning and digging his heels into the ground, pulling up. Stiles yelped in pain, still sinking even farther, the earth up to his armpits. “Go find Isaac.”

“I’ll get you out first.”

“I’m not pack.” Stiles said, and Derek didn’t even hide the hurt and anger he felt at that, even though he had thought the same thing moments before. He was wrong. Blind.

“You’re a moron.”

“And you’re attractive.” Stiles bit back. “J-Just thought I’d say it.”

One of Stiles’s hands slipped from Derek’s grip as it went under, and Derek fell forward. Stiles managed one gasping breath, and the hole seemed to _breathe_ , before suddenly there was just ground, and no Stiles.

“No!” Derek shouted, scrambling forward. “God _damn_ it!”

The howl came again, and this time Derek threw his head back and howled in return, fury blinding him. He whipped his head around, trying to search for more holes in the ground. Scott howled the next time, and Derek got onto his feet, running in their direction. He had to get there, they had to help Stiles. Save him. Maybe they found it, the monster, maybe they could help–

Before he could even tell what was happening, the ground opened up beneath Derek, and he fell forward, his head knocking against something hard and prohibiting him from seeing something much darker below.

* * *

 He woke up wet. Damp. And slimy. Gross.

“Sourwolf,” A voice hissed at him. “Do not make me kiss you to wake you up. This shit be nasty and it smells awful and it’s all over your face and it is _disgusting_.”

“You wanna kiss me?” Derek slurred, turning his face to the side. He could legitimately feel Stiles mentally recoil.

“What? No, shut up.” There was a pause. “This is all a dream…”

“You okay?” Derek asked, concern flooding him.

“Yeah.” Stiles breathed. “I, uh. Got it together. I’m fine now.”

“Where are we?” Derek asked, wiping some slimy crap off of his forehead and out of his eyes as he sat up.

“The Chamber of Secrets,” Stiles quipped. “Although there’s no humongous carnivorous basilisk. Monster’s not a spider, either.”

Derek groaned, pressing his body up against something hard; whether it was dirt or rock, he wasn’t sure. “What is it, then?”

“As far as I can tell?” Stiles shifted against him. “A giant jellyfish.”

Derek peeled open his eyes and took in the sight in the cavern around them. “I’m not sure if that constitutes as a jellyfish.”

Stiles _hmpf_ ed. “It’s some sort of giant blob monster, let me call it a jellyfish.”

They were lying on the edge of an underground cavern, lit up by a glowing, slimy, gross blob thing in the middle of the room; it coated the room in some faint purplish-yellow color, its gelatinous form pinned on the ceiling (floor?) by huge tentacle-looking appendages that drilled into the ceiling. Derek gagged; the thing smelt  _terrible_. Derek watched speechlessly as the cavern shook, one of the tentacles coming down and retracting into the blob, earth and a little bit of sunlight filtering in from the hole it left. The other tentacles glowed, and the earth where the other had come from began to fill in again, the tentacle coming out of the blob and stabbing through a different patch of earth.

Derek blinked. “I have no idea what that is.”

“This is a nature preserve, not a nuclear reactor disaster zone,” Stiles spat out. “What are we, some hellmouth?”

“Beacon Hills,” Derek shrugged, biting his lip as he felt his skin pull over the cut on his hairline.

“That is _not_ supposed to be taken literally.”

They sat in silence and stared at the...thing pulse and glow, casting a somber light over them. After awhile Derek remembered where they actually were and cleared his throat.

“Any theories, research boy?”

“Well, having been down here and conscious for about ten minutes longer than you have, I have developed a few tentative guesses, yeah.” Stiles wiped his slimy hands on his equally slimy jeans, sitting on even more slimy ground. “I sort of think this whole thing was an accident–Can I name it?”

“ _No_ , Stiles.”

“I name it Jerry.”

“Well _Jerry_ might be twelve seconds away from killing us, or eating us.”

“Why twelve? That’s so specific.”

“ _Stiles_.”

“I don’t think it really meant to get us down here,” Stiles mused. “I actually don’t think it’s a carnivore at all. These holes it’s making, they’re not reaching all the way to the surface, and it never goes to the same place twice. But the ground is so fragile, and it’s falling in. I think it’s trying to get nutrients or something from the ground, but it’s running out of room. Us falling in was a fluke because of the brittle ground and the holes it’s making, but the whole area could fall in if it keeps going.”

Derek considered this. “How do we kill it?”

“Without dying?”

“That would be preferable.”

“Hm.”

One of the tentacle-things detached from the blob, Jerry, whatever, and made its way through the air toward Derek and Stiles. Derek slid in front of Stiles protectively, baring his fangs at the creature. Unperturbed, the tentacle slid onto Derek’s hair, effectively soaking him, before doing the same to Stiles and retreating back into the blob. Jerry made some weird purring-esque sound and began to glow brighter, pulsing more dramatically.

Stiles turned to Derek, their bodies close, eyebrows shoved up to his hairline and eyes wide. He whispered hoarse and low. “I think it’s gonna have our babies.”

“We have to kill it.”

Stiles huffed, mockingly offended. “Excuse you, I think we’d have beautiful babies.” Stiles blinked. “What did I just say.”

Derek stared at him for a minute, blinking. "I don't know."

"That's good." Stiles nodded. "Okay."

“Hey, Stiles?” Derek asked after a few minutes, out of the blue.

“Yeah.”

“I like the couch.”

“Thanks, buddy. That means a lot.” Stiles paused. “I think we might be high.”

Derek smacked his lips. “Maybe. It makes me think of you.”

“That’s weird.” Stiles looked at him. “You hate me.”

“I hate _that_ ,” Derek growled. “I hate that.”

Stiles blinked. "What?"

"I think," Derek furrowed his eyebrows. "I think that maybe the thing...had stuff in it."

"That's what I _said_ ," Stiles whined.

"I like it."

"What?"

"When you say things." Derek nodded sagely. "It means that I don't have to."

"Why don't you like to talk?" Stiles asked. "You should talk more. Talk to Jerry."

"Because I always fuck things up." Derek shrugged, and then shook his head a little bit. He started wiping the goo off of his head, and he instantly felt clearer, his thought growing more coherent with every wipe.

"You should do other things, then." Stiles pulled his lips to the side.

"Like what?"

"I dunno," Stiles smirked. "Stuff like..."

And then Stiles was practically falling on him, damp and slimy and gross, and pressing his lips against Derek's. Derek's eyes flew wide open, that damn blush creeping up his neck again, and he looked down at Stiles's closed eyelids, lit up purplish yellow in Jerry's glow. Derek shuddered a bit, knowing that it was so, _so_ wrong, but then closed his eyes and gently started kissing the boy back. The goo, or whatever, was already passing through his system, werewolf healing abilities taking front seat of the situation, but Stiles was very much human, and very much possibly disoriented. Probably. Indefinitely.

That made Derek an asshole. Add it to the list.

He was going to hell, but Stiles – as messy and inexperienced as he was – was a _good_ kisser.

After awhile Stiles broke off, his head falling against Derek's shoulder, arms noodles by his sides.

"You're so scruffy." He sighed into Derek's jacket, like that expressed everything he needed to say.

"Stiles." Derek, now that he and Stiles had...finished...felt terribly guilty. He felt uncomfortable. They needed to get out of there.

"I wouldn't mind if Jerry had our babies." Stiles nodded into the leather, smelling it intensely and grinning. "He took our DNA, I think. Maybe it makes him happy."

"Stiles." Derek's voice choked.

"He deserves to be happy." Stiles continued. "If someone can be happy, why not the giant blob monster? Let's just stay here. We can eat the worms."

Jerry made a grumbly sound, and another tentacle came out of the mass and drilled up into the earth, shaking it. The whole cavern trembled, dirt falling from the ceiling in chunks. Stiles burrowed in closer to Derek.

"I lied, I wanna leave."

"Okay." Derek murmured. He shook his feet, which still felt vaguely numb. He had no idea how to get out of there with Stiles...incapacitated. He settled for starting to wipe the goo off of him, picking it out of his growing hair, now covering most of his head and currently plastering his forehead. Once the goo had significantly decreased from his head and clothes, Stiles seemed much more comfortable, nestling subconsciously against him, eyes closed. Derek felt drowsy himself, but he needed to get Stiles out of there.

So he sat there for a long time, letting Stiles snore softly against him, staring at Jerry and thinking about Stiles's lips on his. His lips on Stiles's. How he should probably just turn himself in for _something_ and sit in jail forever so he wouldn't have to deal with any of this.

He sighed. Alpha pack. Deranged resurrected uncle. Responsibilities. _Right_.

Why it didn't surprise him when Scott slid down one of the holes Jerry made in the ground with a rope in his hand a few minutes later, he had no idea. He had had a long day. He needed a nap. He had a couch now, he could do that.

"Dude." Scott looked at him. "What."

Derek pointed over Scott's shoulder at Jerry. Scott turned around.

"Oh, Jesus," Scott hissed, tripping backward a step. "What _is_ that?"

"Stiles named him Jerry." Derek deadpanned.

"Of course." Scott pulled in his lips. "That makes...perfect sense. Do I kill it?"

"I don't think so." Derek replied, looking at Stiles. "He might cry."

"Is he unconscious?" Scott asked.

"Asleep."

"Dude, it's been, like, thirty minutes."

"There was some..." Derek searched for the word. "Stuff."

"Okay," Scott tilted his head at him. "Let's get you guys out of here, I guess."

Derek looked at Stiles again. "Yeah."

"Here, I'll get Isaac ready, we'll get Stiles up first." Scott said, and Derek nodded. He stood shakily as Scott called up to Isaac. Some dirt fell down the hole.

"We gotta hurry, it's gonna close." Scott said, and Derek stepped forward, Stiles half in his arms and half still on the floor. He stirred, shaking his head like a dog languidly.

"D'rek?" He murmured.

Derek swallowed. "Yeah."

"Where're we?" He blinked. "Are we still with Jerry?"

Derek dared to crack a smile. "Jerry's still here, yeah."

Stiles nodded. "Derek?”

“Yeah?”

Stiles’s head listed on his shoulder. “Did we kiss?"

"Go back to sleep, Stiles."

"Okay."

Stiles helped a little bit as Scott tied the rope around his waist and Isaac pulled him up through the hole. Scott went next, and as the rope dropped back down and Derek grabbed it with one hand, he looked back toward Jerry, still sitting and minding his own business on the ceiling. He tied the rope around his waist.

"Thanks," He muttered to the giant blob monster, then realized how weird that was. "I guess."

He pulled himself up the rope and promptly went home. He was going to take a shower and crawl into bed to not think about Stiles ever again. And no one could stop him.

Somebody ought to have told Derek that he sucked at lying, even to himself. It’d been like, a year of this shit.

* * *

 A week later Derek walked back in from the kitchenette and found Stiles on his couch. Again.

“This is getting old.”

“Hi to you, too,” Stiles said, kicking his feet up on the coffee table.

“Why do you keep showing up here?” Derek growled, but there was nothing malicious behind it.

“Because apparently my window doesn’t suffice for a good enough social entryway for grumpy sourwolves anymore, and you really do need a social life outside of Peter and Isaac. It’s really quite sad.”

“I don’t remember giving you a key.”

“You _do_ know that you live with other people, right?”

There was a moment of silence as Derek rediscovered that fact. Stiles squirmed a little on the couch. Derek wondered if it was uncomfortable. He could always get a new one, even though four days ago Isaac had some weird-ass dream while napping on it and raked claws across the armrest.

“So,” Stiles started awkwardly. “How’s Jerry doin’?”

“Deaton called some...people,” Derek replied, shoulders tense. “To...relocate him. He would have brought the whole preserve down, eventually.”

“Did anyone figure out what the hell he is?”

“No.”

“Well.”

Silence again. Stiles waved his fingers through the air, looked down at them in puzzlement. He’d done that before. Derek frowned. He could feel the awkward in the air, too. Stiles would say that it felt like awkward soup, or pudding.

“I told you I thought you were attractive,” Stiles said. “And then I fell down a hole, hung out with a jellyfish, and we kissed.”

Derek swallowed. “Yeah.”

“So that happened.”

“Yeah.”

“Oh.” Stiles put his hands to his face. “Okay. Were we high?”

“You were. Sort of.” Derek grunted.

“Oh.” Stiles repeated. He frowned. “I don’t understand.”

Derek blinked. “What?”

“It’s just, like,” Stiles stood, pacing slightly between the couch and the coffee table. “I don’t know, when I tell most people I like them or that I think they’re attractive they run for the hills, and then I fell down a hole and you came to save me, you, like, _Mr. Sex God_ , with your...stubble, and your leather jacket, which smells _really_ good and I don’t understand _how_ , what with all the blood and the werewolves and the _aghh_ , but then we kissed, and you said that I was stoned somehow but you weren’t, with your super special werewolf magic, and if you weren’t stoned then why in the world would you...would you _do that_.”

Stiles stared at Derek, biting his lip, like he knew he had said too much. Derek shook his head slowly, and ran a hand through his hair.

“What.”

“Well,” Stiles shrugged. “It doesn’t make any sense, because I’m me, and you’re, well, _you_ , and–”

Without a second of hesitation Derek strode forward, catching Stiles’s face between his hands and scrunching his eyes shut, slamming his mouth against his. Stiles stood still, eyes open in shock, until gears turned in his head and he pulled back.

“Wait, wait, wait, hold up.” Stiles stammered. Derek’s eyes flitted between Stiles’s eyes and mouth, an irritated expression on his face. “You– _what_? You kissed me. You just, Derek Hale just kissed me, and–you totally do think I’m attractive!”

Derek blinked. “What?”

“You are a liar, you said you didn’t think I was attractive!”

“I never said anything.”

Stiles huffed, annoyed. “Well, do you?”

Derek rolled his eyes. “If I say yes, will you shut up?”

“No.”

“ _Yes_.” And then, whoops, kissing again.

 _God_ , Derek thought. He and Stiles toppled over gracelessly onto the couch, still occupied in eating each other’s faces.

“Jesus,” Stiles gasped around Derek’s mouth. Derek huffed. Close enough.

Derek’s hand slid up the side of Stiles’s face and his fingers hooked into the growing hair there, using it as leverage as he pulled Stiles against him. Stiles was an awkward mess of tongue and pointy bones, but Derek didn’t care. He–he _loved_ it.

They finally broke apart sometime, Derek breathing deeply through his nose and Stiles gasping for breath. Stiles started to laugh lowly, and Derek pushed him over.

“Dude,” he breathed. “I want to make out with you for like...eighteen hours.”

“What about the other six?” Derek tried to tease. He wasn’t very good at teasing.

“A boy’s gotta eat.” Stiles said, and Derek started laughing. Stiles sprang up, eyes wide and smile wider. “Oh my God! You laughed! I made Derek Hale laugh. _Victory_!”

Derek retaliated by grabbing the front of Stiles’s shirt and pulling him onto his chest, lying half-on him and half to the side. Stiles laughed into Derek’s jacket, inhaling deeply.

“Why do you always wear this thing inside?” Stiles asked.

“Because I like to look cool,” Derek replied smoothly, obviously avoiding any real sort of answer.

Stiles propped his head on Derek’s chest, looking around the loft with a smile on his face. “You need more stuff.”

“You got me a couch.”

“I mean, _more_ stuff.” Stiles stressed. “Like a TV. Or a rug.”

“We can go to Best Buy sometime,” Derek waved it off. “Maybe when the summer’s over.”

Stiles’s jaw tensed, and he looked up at Derek. “What about...this, whatever it is? What’ll that be, when the summer’s over?”

Derek looked at the wall, mulling it over in his head, weighing the pros and cons of the situation. Being with Stiles; having Stiles near the threat of the Alpha pack. Having Stiles be _his_ ; the alpha pack knowing that Stiles was his. He sighed, pressing himself deeper into the pillows. He gave Stiles another gentle kiss.

“We’ll figure it out.” He said. Stiles grunted, obviously unsatisfied with the answer. He snuggled into Derek, and Derek laid there, staring at the ceiling, thinking until Stiles fell asleep against him, snoring softly into his jacket. He ran his fingers over Stiles’s messy hair. “We’ll figure it out.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> marshmallowfluff's original birthday prompt:
> 
> "Stiles hopes he is attractive to gay guys. He's always wanted to be attractive to gay guys. He's just never told anyone why he wants to be attractive to gay guys. And then he asks Derek if he finds him attractive, and is shocked and delighted to find Derek suitably flustered and the only guy to ever actually give him am answer."
> 
> I took it too far.


End file.
